Sunderland coach explains Niall Huggins' situation as ex-Leeds defender features for U21s against Southampton

The young Black Cats fell three goals down in the first half at the Academy of Light, as first teamers Niall Huggins and Leon Dajaku both played 90 minutes.

It was Huggins’ fourth consecutive start for the under-21s side after over a year out with a series of injury setbacks.

Sunderland produced an improved performance in the second half, yet it was too little too late to salvage something from the Premier League 2, Division 2, fixture

When asked about Huggins after the match, Murty said: “He’s training with the first team now so we have handed over the responsibility for his minutes in training to the first team which is great for Niall.

“We’ll continue to drop him into the team as required by the first team which is really good.

“We obviously had Leon as well who wants to get some minutes in and that is good for him. I think he will get valuable minutes in his legs to help in what he wants to do moving forward.

“For all our young players, playing with first-team players is great for them in terms of the understanding and the quality, looking at those players and saying I want a bit of that.

“We have a lot of young players in that group there who have to start to believe in themselves a little bit.

“I thought the first half in essence was a group of young people not believing they could deal with Southampton, and the second half was a group of young people that believed they could.

“It’s wonderful what the power of belief looks like because it was like night and day in the second half.”

After such a long spell on the sidelines, Huggins, who joined Sunderland from Leeds last year, will continue to be assessed carefully as he looks to get back into the first team.

When discussing the defender’s recovery, Murty added: “He’s listening to his body and his body is responding to what he wants it to do, which is a challenge when you’re out for a while.

“Having gone through it myself I can see the steps that he’s taking, positively, to get back to where he wants to be.

“There will be times that it doesn’t work and there will be times when he tells his body to do something and his body says no. They are incredibly frustrating as a footballer.

“We have to help him get over that frustration and get himself ready for when he’s dropped back into the first team area.

“One of the best things about the 21s programme as far as I can see is the capacity to get those minutes for first-team players and getting them to understand it is a viable competition in terms of making sure they are match prepped and ready to go should they be called upon by the first team.”